Thin Ice

Today we grabbed Brooklyn by the throat and squeezed a ton of fun out of it.

Event number 1 was a trip to Wollman Rink in Prospect Park. The girls wanted to try skating and their wish was our command. Only problem... neither Lisa or I have skated in years and the girls have never skated at all. Even at my best, I could barely skate to save my life. So who was suppose to teach these girls?

We paid our money, laced up our rented skates and headed for the ice.

Disaster.

In the one hour that we played on the ice, we barely moved 10 feet away from the entrance. Lisa eventually remembered enough about skating to take the girls for a drag around the ice. I was pretty much stuck. At one point Marni wailed, "I want to skate, but it's hard!".

Our ice folly was cut mercifully short at 1 o'clock as the rink was closed for Zamboni time. No one was more relieved than Marni and I. While prying off the rental skates we made the decision to continue the Brooklyn adventure by driving out to Coney Island for winter fun on the beach.

We fueled up at our favorite Coney Island eatery, Nathan's. Quite a freak show; even in the dead of winter. Then the girls mixed snow balls and snow men with digging in the sand and collecting shells. I think they would have jumped in the water if we let them.

Our final Brooklyn adventure was a visit to Sherri Bubbles at her beautiful Bay Ridge apartment. We snacked, played games, tortured Kobi the dog, and watched big ships sail by her window until just past sunset.

Thanks Brooklyn. We had a real nice day playing with you!



(This post contains video only viewable from the website)

February Break(down)

My bad. I've just about missed the entire month of February. My excuse? I've been a little busy with the move of my office from Wall Street to Madison Avenue. Well now the move is over (It went fairly well. Thanks for asking) and I can get back to being a daddy blogger.

"Move week" was also "February Break" for the girls.

Stella and Marni started their vacation week at Nana Bev and Papa Art's house. I brought them up on Saturday and left them there Sunday as I headed back to NYC to get started on "move week". While up in Natick, Stella was given painting lessons by Papa Art and both girls played a lot in the snow. Papa Art even dared to take the girls to a movie all by his self when Nana Bev was feeling a bit under the weather.

Needless to say, they had a great time. Job well done Nana and Papa!

On Thursday night Lisa headed up to Natick to join the girls and bring them over to Albany for the remainder of the vacation.

Late Sunday afternoon all three girls stopped by my new office to check it out and pick up their exhausted daddy.

The Blue Bed

Stella's nocturnal migrations have been going on for a couple of years now. They ebb and flow. But they continue. Marni's evolution into person-hood has created a problem with this though. She's no longer content to stay behind downstairs as Stella snuggles in with mom and dad.

Lately, she's been joining Stella in middle-of-the-night escapes from their bedroom. Instead of one kid and two adults in our queen-size bed, there are now two kids and two adults. This just doesn't work. And someone (daddy) ends up sleeping on the sofa downstairs.

Enough.

Enter the blue AeroBed. Originally purchased in 2006 upon Marni's arrival, the air-filled bed has never been pressed into duty. Until now.

Earlier this week I unpacked and blew up the bed in anticipation of an overflow crowd that night. Indeed, the nightly migration took place right on schedule, but this time the girls were confronted with a new option.

The blue AeroBed greeted them at the foot of our regular bed. After a short revolt, the girls quickly accepted their new upstairs sleeping accommodations and fell fast asleep next to each other. And so it has been every night this week.

The future is murky. Of course we are breaking every rule of child rearing by letting the girls sleep in our room. But it's pretty cute having a couple of sweet girls sleeping at the foot of our bed like a pair of pooches.

Overheard #29

Marni to everyone while Stella drew and Marni ate at a restaurant:

"Stella's a good artist. I'm a good eater."

The Era of Skype

About a month ago I was instant messaging with friend Theo. Half way through the "conversation" Theo began berating me for using primitive IM when the world had moved on to Skype. An hour later I had signed up for an account, installed the software and video camera, and was having my first video Skype session with Theo.

Over Christmas I purchased and installed webcams for Natick, Brooklyn and my laptop, and the era of Skype was upon us.

The girls immediately took to it, and almost as quickly became jaded. But they've enjoyed the video calls with daddy's Nana and Papa and with me at the office. Stella already uses the word "Skype" as if it was the first word out of her mouth 5 years ago.

The big test came this past week while I was away in San Francisco. Not only did we have nice chats from my Moscone Center office, but I took the girls and the notebook for walks in the hallways, into other offices and up into the Yerba Buena Gardens. Stella and Marni got to chat with all the NASFT staffers. They were quite a hit.

Skype will now settle into a routine until summer when it will get a workout between Old Orchard and New York City.

And the girls will probably never remember a time when they couldn't see who they were talking to on the computer.

Overheard #28

Stella was watching a little bit of a Three Stooges Marathon with me on New Years Eve. First time for her.

After a while she turned to me and asked, "are those the Jonas Brothers?".

My Beauty

Official kindergarten school photo.

Giftwrap Giftnap

Yesterday Lisa sent Stella to school with three envelopes in her backpack containing gift cards to Dunkin Donuts. The idea was for Stella (or Lisa) to hand them out to Stella's three main teachers at her after-school place, Beansprouts.

When Lisa got to Beansprouts to pick Stella up, the cards were gone and no one, not even Stella, knew what happened to them. Understandably, Lisa was very upset and no one at Beansprouts got a holiday gift. I suggested sending Stella's kindergarten teacher an email asking if perhaps she had seen the cards anywhere. So that was the plan.

Later that night, after the kids had gone to sleep, the telephone rang. An unknown number. Lisa answered, and it was Jennifer, the mom of one of Stella's classmates in kindergarten. I listened to one side of the conversation and then Lisa burst out laughing when the mom asked if Stella really meant to give Lucy two Dunkin Donuts gift cards.

Mystery solved. Almost. What about the third card?

Lucy happened to be standing next to Jennifer during the phone call, so she asked Lucy if she knew anything about a third card. Lucy said she saw Stella give a card to a boy in the class, Alexander (the card was addressed to Stella's Beansprouts teacher, Alex).

So at least we know Stella has begun to read.

All turned out well though. The call from Jennifer resulted in a playdate being set up with Lucy for New Years weekend (to return the cards and have some fun).

And now, I have an awkward email to write to Alexander's parents.

Overheard #27

Marni to Lisa while in the rocking chair at bed time...
"Mommy, I don't like curly hair. I want straight hair like Stella and daddy. Stella's hair and daddy's hair are perfect. My hair and your hair are not perfect. I want straight hair, and then I can marry Cassius." (Cassius is a boy at Raindrops)

Marni to daddy while holding up a note she had just scribbled on...
"Daddy, I want to give this note to the boy at Raindrops with the hat. He sits next to me at circle time. I don't know his name, but I love him. I want to marry him, but I don't know his name."

Celebrate Me Home

The other night I was lying on the floor in my girls' darkened bedroom. They were both drifting off to sleep, snug and cozy in their beds as the frigid winter winds whipped by outside the window.

Their breathing was getting deeper and slower as they slipped away into dreamland.

Playing quietly in the dark was Christmas music from the radio. A song came on that I had never heard before. It was released by Kenny Loggins in 1976 and has become famous in its own right. But I had never heard "Celebrate Me Home" before. I'm no fan of mellow Kenny (with the exception of maybe "Danger Zone"), but this song was really nice.

I listened to it as my two precious girls slept on either side of me. And then, without fanfare or ceremony, it became one of those songs that you associate forever with a special time and place.

So now "Celebrate Me Home" is my magical Christmas lullaby song. And every time I hear it, it will remind me of my two most wonderful gifts... Stella and Marni, as they slumber peacefully on a cold winter's night.

Click here to hear for yourself.

Overheard #26

This morning Marni called me "despicable".

Yes, she watches a lot of Bugs and Daffy cartoons.

Meet the Press

Please join our round-table discussion on poop, already in progress...

God Has Arrived

It could be worse.

Stella could be asking about sex. Or about first marriages. Or about Glenn Beck.

But, instead, she is asking and talking about God.

It started over the weekend when she asked me if I knew about God. I said yes, and then quickly changed the subject. I was caught off guard.

Then she did it again the next day. She asked me something about God. I asked her what she knew about God.

She said that God was the biggest guy in the world. He made everything. And he lives up in the sky.

I asked her where she learned about God. Her response was predictable, "I don't know".

And then she started to explain God to Marni.

Nebulized

The call from Lisa started with "Don't worry, Stella is ok". Now that's a nice kinda phone call to get!

Lisa went on to explain that Stella visited the school nurse's office complaining that she couldn't breathe. The nurse checked her out and couldn't find anything wrong. Stella finished the rest of the day as usual and Lisa set up a doctor appointment to check her out.

The 6:45 p.m. appointment ended up being a 7:30 p.m. appointment at our perpetually late pediatrician. All I have to say is thank goodness for the iPhone! It kept Stella occupied all the way through the process.

When we finally got to see the doc, she asked Stella some questions and then listened to her chest. The prognosis? Some sort of minor bronchial infection that was keeping Stella from exhaling smoothly.

The doc disappeared for a moment and returned with a nebulizing machine in the shape of a yellow race car. She told Stella she would need to wear a mask like an astronaut and breath "clouds" for 10 minutes. Mask on. Machine on. More iPhone games while the clouds made Stella better.

After the treatment, Stella said she felt fine. The doc listened again and said she seemed to be breathing out a little easier.

We left the office with a prescription for some home nebulizing stuff to give Stella over the next few days plus a prescription for a precautionary chest x-ray.

Luckily there has been little drama with the at-home treatments (with the exception of Marni also wanting to breathe into Stella's machine).

The x-ray is happening as I write this and hopefully all will be ok. For now, Stella is happy and no longer complaining about breathing.

Now I can breathe easier.

Born Free

Last June America fell in love with the story of a little Brooklyn girl and her two pet snails. Rescued from the wild, the two snails soon learned to live amongst people and became domesticated.

The two snails (whose names changed on an almost daily basis) went with us everywhere. To Natick. To Albany. To Old Orchard Beach. They became a part of our family.

Eventually, Stella agreed with daddy that the snails missed their real families and should be set free.

So today the snails bid our fair family ado. We took them to Prospect Park (after a brief visit to temple this morning). There, we said our goodbyes. We placed the snails on nice damp leaves in a wooded area that we know well. The snails immediately started to move towards freedom. Stella and Marni were happy.

As the snails slithered deeper into the leaves, they turned back towards us and roared a little farewell. And then, they were gone.

Perhaps next spring we will visit this part of the park in search of the snails. If we see them, will they still remember us? Will they come up to us, without fear? And maybe, just maybe, they will let us see their new pride of baby snails.

"Born free, and life is worth living
But only worth living
'cause you're born free"

Overheard #25

At dinner, Stella was recounting her exciting field trip to the New York Aquarium. Sharks! Stingrays! Walruses!

Then Marni pipes up...

"Excuse me daddy, but nothing was fun at Raindrops."

(Photo courtesy of Meike Discher)

Photo Op

I just had to put this picture up. It's so perfectly Marni. As we were rushing out the door to grab the plane to Germany, Marni decided she needed to wear a crown.

And as we waited to check our luggage, Marni set the tone for the trip by being a total goofball.

EuroTrip 2009 - Part 3

Day 7 was a stay-near-home kinda day. We took the girls into downtown Gengenbach for a little looking, a little shopping, and a little eating.

This is one adorable town. Beautiful, clean, quaint.

After an hour or so of shopping (and the accompanying whining of "can you by me this"), we met up with Meike's sister Silke and her new husband Michael. We caught up on old times over coffee and pastries at the local bakery.

Later, Lisa and I took the monsters grocery shopping. They each got their own kid-sized shopping cart with which to haul our goodies and bruise the shins of innocent Germans.

That evening was a birthday party for Mieke and Silke's dad at their house. Delicious food. Poorly behaved children (ours). The usual.

Next morning... pack, jump in the car, and off to Basel for our flight home.

The flight to London was mercifully short and uneventful. We negotiated the sprawling Terminal 5 at Heathrow much better this time since we weren't suffering from sleep deprivation. We killed time by having lunch at a Gordon Ramsay restaurant in the terminal. Good and pricey.

Our flight home was on a new(ish) 777 rather than on the old(ish) 747 that we flew out of New York on. A little less cramped if you ask me. Dinner. Movies. Sleep (for the kids). Marni actually slept through the landing.

Luggage. Car service home. Bed.

All in all I would call the trip a total success. The girls had a wonderful time (as did we grownups). Our hosts were fantastic and took excellent care of us.

The girls are still getting up at 4 a.m. due to jet lag. But this will pass. So let's do this again!

In a year. Or two.

EuroTrip 2009 - Part 2

Ok, not soccer. Badminton. These people love badminton!

We pulled up in front of the "sports pavilion" in Offenburg. Meike asked us what we called such a building in America. My answer was that we didn't have such a building in America. But, then again, we live in the big city. Maybe in the real America there are such places. The fascination with sports and fitness in Germany is amazing.

We walked into a giant building filled with badminton courts (?) from end to end. Two of the Discher boys were competing in this championship. In between watching the matches we ate delicious food and practiced badminton ourselves. The girls liked learning a new sport except when daddy whacked Marni in the mouth with the racket. Moving on...

A short drive later we were at the foot of a small mountain topped by a ancient castle. Access to the castle was via a precipitous path covered by slippery wet leaves. Deep breath. The sure-footed Dischers helped us up the path with no fatalities. Once up top the girls ran off in search of new dangerous places to be. They ran up spiral staircases that ended at breathtaking views and breathtaking danger at the top of the crumbling castle walls. Despite my anxiety, the girls enjoyed themselves to the maximum allowed by law.

At the foot of the mountain was a quaint restaurant where we ate a late lunch outdoors amongst geese, chickens and snails. The girls devoured their soups as I ate possibly the most delicious and unhealthy meal of my trip. And so ended the official program of day three. Once the kids were asleep, Meike, Claus, Lisa and I slipped out for a drink in downtown Offenburg. I ordered a traditional Long Island Ice Tea.

Day four was a doozy. We met up with more Dischers and with the Schmid family in Freiburg for a day on a farm. Chickens, pigs, cows, horses, goats, cats, dogs and bunnies. All on a working farm. It was great fun watching the six new children, who didn't exist during our last visit to Germany, all play with each other despite the language barrier.

After terrorizing the barnyard residents, we made our way to a fantastic playground in the back of the farm. We spent hours there playing and eating. Stella and Marni even ascended the 10-foot high, inflatable "bounce mountain". Without exaggeration I believe that 90% of the playground would be deemed illegal in the U.S. due to safety concerns. Which is why this playground was so much fun.

After the farm we visited the Schmid and Baier family homes where we ate (of course) and where the ladies played with their German counterparts without international incident. Beautiful homes and wonderful families.

Day 5 was kid-free as Lisa and I slipped out of town and headed for Paris before the girls awoke. While we were away, Meike took the girls on a train to an indoor swimming pool. Later in the day was a nature walk and art time.

On day 6 Meike bravely took the girls grocery shopping. This is never a pleasant experience. Later, a trip to another farm where Stella and a goat butted heads (almost). That evening the girls came to pick us up at the train station as we returned from Paris.

Today was Europa Park! The Disney World of Germany.

This place was huge! And fantastic. We were accompanied by Meike, Samuel and Simon. The girls worked their was across the park from ride to ride to ride. At one point we brought the girls to a giant indoor playground. Inside the building was a large play structure, several stories high. Kids could go in, but parents had to watch from the sides. So the girls headed in.

And this is where we lost Marni.

We watched them run into the play area and saw Marni scamper up and up and up to the higher floors. A few minutes later Stella came out. Alone. She told us she couldn't find Marni. We were sure she would show up soon, so we waited. Several minutes later, no Marni. We looked and looked but couldn't find her. Now we were beginning to worry. Lisa described Marni to a worker and then persuaded her to allow Lisa to go into the structure and search. Lisa took Stella with her and began the rescue mission as I stood by the entrance. A minute later I looked down and saw two boys holding Marni's hands and bringing her to one of the workers. The boys spoke English and explained that they found her crying on one of the upper levels and brought her down to safety. I asked Marni what happened and she told be that she got scared. Lisa and Stella returned and we were reunited at last.

We ate and played our way through the park for a few more hours and made our way out just as the fireworks began. Marni hooted and howled. Then we shoved her in the car and took off for home. Day 6... another success.

Overheard #24 (International Edition)

We were walking around a farm in Germany and came across a gaggle of cows standing outside a barn. Stella took a look at the largest cow (pictured on the left) and said "that cow is a girl". We thought it was "utterly" understandable how she figured this out. But when we asked her how she knew, she explained, "because it has long eyelashes".